Enitzu said:geatz said:- Raiding in theory is logistically much more difficult, but in reality much easier than grouping. The vast majority of groups are generally pug while raids are generally planned events. Finishing a group dungeon probably has a lower success rate than finishing a raid.
- Raids generally start in one night and end in one night, questing/progeny/leveling/group dungeon crawl would all require more time spent.
- Almost no risk in raiding, every class is available in a raid generally so rez and corpse rot are not even a worry. If one person leaves a raid it generally won't disturb a raid usually there are subs where as one person leaving a pug might mean gameover
- Well it certainly doesn't have to be, but your options might be somewhat limited because the end game of any game is always going to be the same thing, GRINDING. I can only assume that grinding raid mobs seemed better than grinding fish so they threw all the best items on raid mobs to force us to do that. Later they started AA which was level grinding.
- Completely disagree. Rarely have I ever been in a pug dungeon group that failed to do what they set out to do. Dungeons have not been difficult in any game to date. Hell even the mythic+ that is supposed to be the "challenging" ones weren't. Raids however do fail, a lot. Go ask any high end guild in any game if they wipe alot.
- Raids are designed that way. Questing/leveling/progeny (same as leveling since thats all it is) is the content that you do from 1-50 so yea ofc it is a bigger part of the game. If that's all you want to do then why even be in the conversation? You have what you want, infinite questing and leveling via progeny.
- This one here, honestly dumbfounded at this belief. No risk .. So all the people on these forums that can recall their stories from the nightmare CR runs at 3am trying to get corpses from Plane of Fear are all just a bunch of liars? I have personally known more than 1 who has lost their corpse in early EQ because they couldn't take the time or find people to help with CR's. Knew people who quit the game because they fell in the hole and couldn't get the corpse back. I'm all for listening to alternatives ways to do things but at least think about what you say before you say it.
Edit - Here's a link to the wipe counter for WoW's last tier of the previous expansion. https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/3e2mry/methods_hfc_wipe_counter/ just to show you that there is risk. Every time you pull a boss you risk the wipe. You risk the hours of CRs. You risk losing everything. To say that doesn't exist is simply because you refuse to accept the truth
- Plenty of time I sat LFG for hours without ever getting a full group or just duo'd trash mobs. If I actually got a pug started or I joined an existing one eventually someone would leave and we would need to backtrack to an easier camp taking me further from what I needed. I'm not sure why you disagree, thats life if I plan a party a month ahead of time, I'm going to have better luck than If I send out a text to a bunch friends last minute. I have no idea what mythic+ is, so I won't comment, but EQ dungeons were frustratingly diffucult, so I'm not sure how you can say that.
- The question was Why is raiding the most time consuming? Why cant no other activity be more time consuming? I didn't say that's all I want to do, I like raiding, I was just answering the question, by giving examples of things that are more time consuming than raids.
-Never had a nightmare corpse run in a raid, just never happened to me although I had plenty nail bitting corpse runs in group dungeons. In a raid if we wipped we had a someone log out or an alt ready to go. In our raids we were always prepared for the worst wipe, I never worried. Clerics with xp rez, necros with corpse summons, mages with coth, rogues with sneak, there was no danger of losing a corpse ever. Groups on the otherhand were usually unorganized messes, where you may not have a cleric or a rogue, or a monk, or....you get my point. Sorry, I just disagree with you, that wasn't my experience.
In direct response to the OP:
My personal ideal gameplay would be enough raid content to satisfy about 20 hours of raiding a week, with best in slot loot only coming from this content. Clickable items like Shrink, Levitate, etc. could be sourced from non-raid content but I don't think best in slot combat/stat gear should be obtained outside of raids, personally.
Outside of raiding, group content with its own set of progression that resulted in best in slot augmentations that go into gear, as well as cosmetic rewards/titles, etc. For instance, in EQ best in slot augs generally come from group content. However, having a best in slot aug isn't going to make you as powerful as having best in slot gear to put them in.
Ideally the progression of the group content would get increasingly difficult to the point where only very well geared and skilled players would be able to complete that block of content all the way through.
Liav what about things like crafting. Would you be opposed to having bosses drop only materials. Say there is a raid boss called the Tarasque, whose only drops were Tarasque Skin and Tarasque Claw. These items only purpose is to be used to craft 2-3 items each, perhaps in tandem with other non-raid rare materials. Is it ok that these items did not technically drop from the raid, i.e. that you could theoretically purchase a "Tarasque Jerkin"?
If there is no problem, then I see no difference between bis gear being obtained through purchase and bis gear being obtained in a variety of content. The difference is totally arbitrary, because in the end at least some bis is technically obtained through crafting and technically purchaseable. The wearer did not "complete the hardest content" to obtain it, they just bought it off some dude. At least where some gear is obtained from difficult group content the bearers obtained it in the course of fighting. If there is a problem with the crafted mat drop -> crafted gear situation, then you just run into the same problem WoW and FFXIV have where nobody cares about non-raid content at all, including the developers.
I believe the description of raiding as always the most difficult content and therefore deserving of all the rewards is an attitude that has been fomented by world of warcraft style design. It is by no means a truism of the genre, merely a popular design schema because it allows developers to ignore other content vis-a-vis balance. It also encourages standardization of encounter design and player job design because when only bosses are important then every job must be able to participate within a given range of efficacy in all raid content. Even WoW has begun to move away from it because it is stifling as a design restriction.
On the other hand, when a large variety of group sizes are relevant and when developers are freed from the rotting fetters of turning non-raid boss monsters into "trash" monsters then specializations can grow and flourish. Suddenly cc and pure support support and hybrid jobs are perfectly fine because not everything worthwhile is about throwing EXACTLY 36 people at boss ability combination #10.
I dunno, I just find a development approach more open to possibility to be inherently superior.
Overall, I would like to see pattern drops or crafting rare crafting materials drop instead of BiS gear. Then, they go to crafters to make the gear.
This would allow raiders to gear themselves out with top gear AND allow them to sell the extra pieces on the open market. I always hated to see loot go to waste because no one needed it and we didn't want to take the time to sell loot rights.
This would allow non-raiders to get the gear they need, but the raiders to still benefit by being the commercial source of the mats/patterns.
Beefcake said:Overall, I would like to see pattern drops or crafting rare crafting materials drop instead of BiS gear. Then, they go to crafters to make the gear.
This would allow raiders to gear themselves out with top gear AND allow them to sell the extra pieces on the open market. I always hated to see loot go to waste because no one needed it and we didn't want to take the time to sell loot rights.
This would allow non-raiders to get the gear they need, but the raiders to still benefit by being the commercial source of the mats/patterns.
Eh, I'm fine with rare crafting materials dropping in raids but I think the rare pattern/schematic/plans should come from somewhere else more often than not. I've always seen the pursuit of crafting as a separate endeavour or path to take from the leveling/dungeon/raiding options. Obviously they are all intermixed but the sources for end game crafting should be sprinkled everywhere. Maybe the patterns/whatever drop from different rare dungeon humanoid smithys or weavers and they happen to require raid drops to make, but have the raid materials tradeable. You should be able to be a legendary crafter without ever having slain creatures of legend.
Jimmayus said:Liav what about things like crafting. Would you be opposed to having bosses drop only materials. Say there is a raid boss called the Tarasque, whose only drops were Tarasque Skin and Tarasque Claw. These items only purpose is to be used to craft 2-3 items each, perhaps in tandem with other non-raid rare materials. Is it ok that these items did not technically drop from the raid, i.e. that you could theoretically purchase a "Tarasque Jerkin"?
I think it's a really lazy way to make crafting relevant. Not only that, but being able to purchase raid loot with plat should just never happen. That's opening the door to an RMTfest I don't even want to think about.
There is a way to circumvent the latter though, which would be to make the raid dropped materials unable to be traded, but having a user interface option that allows a crafter to temporarily utilize a component in your own inventory to make an item. EQ2 has a system in place like this.
However, I still think it's a super lazy way to make crafting relevant if its primary function is to serve as a middleman to getting raid gear.
Jimmayus said:If there is no problem, then I see no difference between bis gear being obtained through purchase and bis gear being obtained in a variety of content. The difference is totally arbitrary, because in the end at least some bis is technically obtained through crafting and technically purchaseable. The wearer did not "complete the hardest content" to obtain it, they just bought it off some dude. At least where some gear is obtained from difficult group content the bearers obtained it in the course of fighting. If there is a problem with the crafted mat drop -> crafted gear situation, then you just run into the same problem WoW and FFXIV have where nobody cares about non-raid content at all, including the developers.
I don't think that's necessarily true, considering that plenty of content in numerous games is relevant outside of raiding.
Jimmayus said:I believe the description of raiding as always the most difficult content and therefore deserving of all the rewards is an attitude that has been fomented by world of warcraft style design. It is by no means a truism of the genre, merely a popular design schema because it allows developers to ignore other content vis-a-vis balance. It also encourages standardization of encounter design and player job design because when only bosses are important then every job must be able to participate within a given range of efficacy in all raid content. Even WoW has begun to move away from it because it is stifling as a design restriction.
Well, most best in slot equipment in EQ came from raids long before WoW was even an idea.
Having more people involved in a task is always more convoluted than having fewer people involved in a task. The logistics of raiding alone cause it to surpass any other content style in difficulty. Getting a well oiled machine of 6 people to cooperate nearly-perfectly is almost trivial compared to getting 24, 48, 72, etc. people to function in the same way.
I don't personally believe that reinventing the wheel is on the table.
Jimmayus said:On the other hand, when a large variety of group sizes are relevant and when developers are freed from the rotting fetters of turning non-raid boss monsters into "trash" monsters then specializations can grow and flourish. Suddenly cc and pure support support and hybrid jobs are perfectly fine because not everything worthwhile is about throwing EXACTLY 36 people at boss ability combination #10.
I dunno, I just find a development approach more open to possibility to be inherently superior.
I'm fine with a wide variety of content styles, up to a point. The maximum raid size I find optimal is in the 24ish range. Any more than that causes a necessary reduction in personal responsibility via mechanics as a way to mitigate the unlikelihood of finding such a large number of competent people to facilitate more complex encounters.
If they want to make content suitable to 6, 12, 24, etc. I'm fine with it. I still reject that content suitable to smaller sizes than the maximum raid size in the game can possibly be simpler than larger raid sizes, at least, until a more convincing argument is put forth.
Beefcake said:This would allow non-raiders to get the gear they need, but the raiders to still benefit by being the commercial source of the mats/patterns.
The implication being that non-raids need raid gear. Raid gear is intended to be a stepping stone to harder raid content. If you don't participate in content you don't need the rewards from it. Not in my opinion.
Your last paragraph doesn't make any sense in the context of your argument, but I think you mean the opposite (simpler -> more complex). To that end, I believe this is simply an example of a lack of experience with a variety of content. Even as a simple example from modern games, FFXIV's larger raids are trivial in comparison to smaller group raids.
At any rate, I believe that one of the lessons to draw from the history of the genre is that players a loathe to participate in only large-scale (player wise) raids. The examples are endless, from more obvious ones like the collapse of Wildstar under the weight of its own pretention to the preference for smaller groups displayed in most modern mmos to the fact that people attempted to bring as few people as possible to older mmo endgame content. I would prefer Pantheon take heed from the mistakes Wildstar especially in this regard.
Just stating that something is lazy does not make it lazy, that's just an opinion. If anything I think your solution is unnecessarily restrictive and antithetical to creating an environment like in older styles of mmos, where crafting materials frequently dropped and even more frequently were traded and sold. I see no difference between that and directly selling equipment.
Anyway, I think we are simply at an impasse. I believe your preference for raiding only is an implicit bias based on only playing a certain subset of game structures, and you believe that the things I describe as existing simply werent possible. I would hope, however, that you would be fine at least acknowledging that many people have voiced opinions hoping for more whollistic systems.
Yeah, I meant the opposite of what I said. Whoops.
As for large-scale raids, I am also objected to them. However, what constitutes large scale is pretty subjective. 24, to me, is not large scale.
That said, I stand by what I said with regards to crafting. I don't necessarily think that specific portion of old style MMOs is desirable. You don't see a difference between selling raid-drop crafting materials and direct raid drops, and neither do I. I'm objected to both situations, equally.
I've played quite a variety of games so I'm pretty well in tune with my own desires. That includes hardmode raids designed for much less than the maximum raid size that was allowable in, as well as EQ zerg style content.
I'm fine acknowledging the things people are asking for and that they can exist, but some of these things are still far from desirable in my eyes. Which is fine, that's the nature of discussion.
End-game in my opinion, in no particular order, would benefit from consisting of:
Sicario said:End-game in my opinion, in no particular order, would benefit from consisting of:
- - Group dungeons with differing tiers of difficulty
- - Tiered raids (both in difficulty and number of groups, i.e. 12 man, 18 man, and 24 man raids)
- - Long, epic adventure quests for a variety of items and gear
- - Long, epic crafting quests
- - Crafting
- - High-level events that are community/GM/dev driven that occur in both low-level and high-level zones
This sounds good to me. The only thing I would add is "Long, epic, cross discipline, multitier (many stages of different disciplines and rewards) quests". Essentially what I want are quest lines that combine all you have listed together for best rewards in the game. In my opinion people that "hate raiding", dont really hate raiding, they just hate raiding non-stop, almost every day of the week because thats the only viable end-game. If there are raids sprinkled throughout a month(s) long quest line, it would be enjoyable to all. Ability to access a raid, should feel like a reward of its own. Raids should not be a daily grind like they have become.
Jimmayus said:Your last paragraph doesn't make any sense in the context of your argument, but I think you mean the opposite (simpler -> more complex). To that end, I believe this is simply an example of a lack of experience with a variety of content. Even as a simple example from modern games, FFXIV's larger raids are trivial in comparison to smaller group raids.
FFXIV is probably the biggest oddity of the entire MMO genre. They decided to go with 8 man raids and 24 man LFR type stuff. The larger raids were designed to be faceroll to give more of a story arc to the casual crowd. Hence the reason I've stated in other posts about the super casual mode of it. It's a good game with a lot of things to do so it keeps the player base active but it's in no way a hardcore game. Their 24 mans are easy mode because it was designed that way. There aren't many mechanics. Unless you are tanking, you pretty much dps adds > boss and collect loot. Little bit harder for the tank because you need to know positioning but still not bad since there are 7 others in raid who can do the job for you.
Most large raids in games are hands down the hardest content by a landslide. Hell the simple jump in difficulty from heroic raids to mythic in wow is atonishing. That's the entire reason that 90% of guilds can and will clear heroic yet only maybe 10-15% will clear mythic. Most don't even attempt mythic raiding because it's too hard for them.
@Liav - I agree with you on most points. The fact is there really is no reason that non raiders "need" the bis raid gear to do dungeons. But people always want the best without having to invest the same time/effort. It's the sad truth unfortunately. To all those people, you don't need it. Raid gear was designed to take on harder raids. Progressively getting harder. So if you aren't doing them, then why do you need it? I'd advocate for a similar system in dungeons honestly. If dungeons began weaker and progressed to give out bottom tier raid gear as they got much harder I'd actually like that. As for augments, sorry totally against you there. Don't even want them in game. At least not for a long time. I think it's just an additional layer to gearing and we don't need it to start.
What I don't want is a fully RMTable situation. I don't want to see all raid gear being tradable. I don't want to see massive amounts of end game craftables equal to raid gear. I don't want to see raid equivilant dungeon gear being tradeable. When you start having top end gear that's tradable you start having a gold mine of RMT that you can never get rid of. Say what you want about how many people here "will never use RMT sites, etc blah blah" but I am pretty dam sure that half the people here have done so before in one way or another. So giving that freedom is not a great idea imo.
@Muscoby - That is what I wanted from the thread. I want ideas and thoughts on ways to do alternate end game things. But what I won't do is break the tenants or let people ask for the handouts that so many other games have gone towards. This game is designed to be long and difficult. You are expected to really work for what you have. Those ideals, I want to keep in play. So while fishing and other things should be a part of the game, they really should in no way provide BiS gear in my opinion. But again, that is my opinion. People are free to voice theirs and we all know Kilsin reads the threads so if they like the idea they can incorporate it.
And yes I agree with just about everyone that BiS won't really exist here. It will all be situational and have varied use. What I mean when I say BiS is just the best level of gearing for the current content
Liav said:Beefcake said:This would allow non-raiders to get the gear they need, but the raiders to still benefit by being the commercial source of the mats/patterns.
The implication being that non-raids need raid gear. Raid gear is intended to be a stepping stone to harder raid content. If you don't participate in content you don't need the rewards from it. Not in my opinion.
Strongly disagree with this. You keep describing old or existing games. We are not trying to outline what exists in other games in this thread. We are debating what we would want to see in the future out of this game. There is no such thing as "raid gear" with intent to be used for raids (yes I know few games have this defined that way, but this is not that game). There is gear. Gear that is very useful for group play. And those that enjoy other combat content would greatly benefit from top tier gear. You keep defining value/achievement by one simple fact "mob designed to be killed by more than 6 people". Even if you kill a 7-people mob with 100 people, you consider it the best accomplishment in the game that deserves the best gear. This is narrow thinking. No one here wants the best rewards for mediocre effort. We are trying to define other possible "efforts" that would deserve the best gear in the game. Again, NO ONE wants raid gear by not raiding. There is a significant portion of gaming community that wants the opportunity to get the best gear by achieving the hardest(by variety of definitions) things in the game.
Personally I enjoy raiding. My only issue with raiding is when they become daily grind and I feel like i'm missing out on the rest of the game because raiding is the only rational choice to improve your character.
Liav said:Beefcake said:This would allow non-raiders to get the gear they need, but the raiders to still benefit by being the commercial source of the mats/patterns.
The implication being that non-raids need raid gear. Raid gear is intended to be a stepping stone to harder raid content. If you don't participate in content you don't need the rewards from it. Not in my opinion.
I Agree with Liav on this one.. first time for everything.
But do you agree with Liav's underlying premise, i.e. that raiding is the only possible outcome for top-tier endgame activity? That's the problem. Nobody here is advocating that raids (defined here as large groups of player killing bosses intended for large groups of players) should be removed or obviated. We're arguing that over-focusing endgame on that by providing all relevant best rewards narrows the playing experience. People consequently perceive raiding as the only form of endgame that is worthwhile, because for most intents and purposes it is.
This is a problem that has plagued WoW for a decade, that plagues FFXIV, that plagues most modern games. The developers of those games tend to ignore imnportant aspects of world building because they are unable to incentivize endgame players to participate in them in a meaningful way. If raiding constitues only a part of what it means to be a top-tier player, and the other parts include engaging in challenging content not necessarily designed for throwing bodies at something then the game can disperse its content throughout the world, making for a better, more whollistic experience.
I am personally a raider. As I said it's my biggest motivation to play MMOs. But even I don't believe that should be the end all be all for an MMO. When I started this I was essentially asking "What else should the end game be compromised of?" and instead it turned into "What should reward the best gear?". That really wasn't my intention. So instead I'll give a tiering 'list' of how I think end game should look.
Loot I'll divide into 4 tiers - Tier 4 being highest ilvl/stat budget down to Tier 1. This is all based on launch content with more added with new content of course.
Raids - Tier 4 (hardest content mechanically/socially/logistically)
Dungeons - Progressive starting at T1 ending at T3
Crafting - Progressive ending at what I'll call T3.5 using raid materials and ultra rare dungeon drops. Possibly a long quest line to learn to make the best stuff.
Epic Quests - T4 and T3. T4 being the Epic weapons with others being T3 or T4 depending on the scope of the quest
Now this is what is normally in games such as this. My question was more "what else could we suggest to add to this?" and keeping along these lines of a tiering system what tier should they fall into. The entire argument about whether raiding is harder than a dungeon is a moot point because it really depends on how they want to make the game. If it follows the lines of most MMOs, then raiding is harder. However, it is possible to make the reverse true. Since we have no idea, speculation won't assist us here. So just going to 'assume' they will follow the 'norm'. At no point should we devalue the tenants or the risk vs reward factor (which is a tenant), basically meaning that if there is no risk involved then the reward is substantially smaller. So instead of the loot issues, can we attempt to find other things we could add to the end game processes to benefit us all
Edit - The dynamis type ideas are more what I am refering to. My only issue with this one is that it normally uses instancing with scaling technology and I don't see how it would fit into an open world scenario. If they have a way to work it in then it would be another good addition to allow for smaller team gameplay. Maybe they could make them into something like a 12-18 man mini raid that would provide T3/T4 loot.
I can agree with that Jimmay. But so long as the gearing remains close it shouldn't be that big of a disparity. Kilsin has already stated raids will not be a primary focus so I do not expect to see a large number of raid bosses (at least not at launch). So dungeons, and the gear they provide, will end up being among the best that most attain I'd imagine. Unless they put in a lock out system of some sort to prevent 2-3 guilds locking down the limited raid content. Besides, as you and many others have stated, all gear will be situational. We will have to farm dungeons regardless if raids contain better gear or not
Enitzu said:Raids - Tier 4 (hardest content mechanically/socially/logistically)
Dungeons - Progressive starting at T1 ending at T3
Crafting - Progressive ending at what I'll call T3.5 using raid materials and ultra rare dungeon drops. Possibly a long quest line to learn to make the best stuff.
Epic Quests - T4 and T3. T4 being the Epic weapons with others being T3 or T4 depending on the scope of the quest
Personally I have a problem with this. This is what I want to see:
Raids - Tier 4 (hardest content mechanically/socially/logistically)
Dungeons - Tier 4 (hardest content mechanically/socially/logistically)
Crafting - Tier 4 (hardest content mechanically/socially/logistically)
Epic quests - Tier 4 (hardest content mechanically/socially/logistically)
Harvesting - Tier 4 (hardest content mechanically/socially/logistically)
Exploration - Tier 4 (hardest content mechanically/socially/logistically)
Diplomacy - Tier 4 (hardest content mechanically/socially/logistically)
X - Tier 4 (hardest content mechanically/socially/logistically)
Y - Tier 4 (hardest content mechanically/socially/logistically)
I really dont know how else to explain this general idea than with an exaggerated list like this. There are may game activities that already exist and loved by majority of MMO players. There is no need to invent new ones. I am also a firm believer that top tier gear in the game should take many many months if not years to get. I'm an old school EQ player and I want things to be just as hard in Pantheon as it was in EQ. So please dont misunderstand my post as me advocating giving away top tier gear to everyone.
Raids have been done to death and they have been done well. This is the only end game mechanic thats polished and works well. We dont need to change it. What we need is to start thinking about converting other MMO cornerstone ideas/mechanics into end game content. Make them equal in difficulty (mechanically/socially/logistically or mechanically+2/socially-1/logistically-1 or mechanically +1, socially +0, logistically – 1, etc.. math should be balanced) to raids and hence make them worthy of top tier gear. Make the game a wonder again, worthy of exploration and allow for individual choice in gameplay.
tldr: End-game in one word... Questing.
End game should be about the world and nothing else.
It would be nice if the world would change and evolve, unfortunately that capability is not quite possible. The next best thing is Questing. Not the bloat that came from post-Luclin EQ or WoW, or EQ2... none of this "kill 10 rats" thing. Quests should always be epic in nature... and should involve all parts of the game in general, but nothing specific. What is needed should be defined by the quest, how it is obtained should be left up to me.
In that sense, having one particular activity as the focus of end-game is bad design. It is sad to see the effect "instancing" has had on the MMO community. The degradation of the MMO "world" into very narrow corridors of activity and progression is exactly why a game like Pantheon is needed and will be successful. Talk of "BiS" and "12/18/24 man" are symptoms of this problem... along with the talk of "raiding" as the pinnacle of all content (non-combat content included). We don't need systems (i.e. LDoN, Dynamis, etc.) or artificial restrictions or limited content.
Saying that best gear should come from 24-man raiding instead of 6-man dungeons only adds to this problem. If that's the though process, then why not have 100-man content that has the best gear... or 1000-man content. The higher the better, right? Systems and arbitrary restrictions completely kill the sense of the world and our purpose in it. Why would you ever say, "that dragon is tough, but we really don't want that extra man along!" Yes, this puts a huge burden on the devs to create content that is difficult and meaningful... but we've had 15 years of stagnant and limited content and it's time that changed.
Understanding there are limitations, here is my suggestion for end-game:
As to specific comments in this thread...
Concerning raiding...
It is not the most difficult or challenging, it is a type of content... nothing more. Yes it is difficult to coordinate a big group, but large groups can cover for individual mistakes a lot easier and allow for a greater variety of skills/abilities.
Raiding should never be arbitrarily restricted or instanced. The dragon at the end of a dungeon isn't a "raid boss" because it has 24-man written on it's forehead, but because it takes more than the traditional group to defeat it. How many? Why would you ever pre-define that for the players? How would you ever know how "tough" something is or what a "boss" is capable of until you've tried it? If 12 players can do it... great! If it takes 23 then so be it. The focus should not be on how many and what classes, but on the boss itself. It is inevitable and desirable that best tactics/classes would "leak" into the community over time, but that info comes from players doing the content not from developers defining the content for players.
Concerning loot...
JDNight said:... I think a big key here is for Pantheon to have a very large variety of gear, much of it situational. There should be no BiS. There should not even be situational BiS. ...
JDNight hit it on the head... sadly this seems to be ignored in this thread. Having a single piece of gear as the best you can get that comes simply from killing a mob (no matter how difficult) is really poor design. It inevitably leads to everyone looking the same, doing the exact same thing and a sort of "elite" attitude on what you must have to be the best. Please no.
Loot should also NEVER be restricted on trading/selling. The only arguments I've seen on this are RMT and "cause they didn't work for it."
Concerning instancing...
Please no... I loved seeing in the December stream when they were fighting that golem-type boss and another player shows up and helps them out a bit. Instancing turns the rest of the world into a dungeon-finder lobby. Anyone who never played pre-Luclin EQ knows how awesome a difficult/open dungeon is. The social interaction alone is worth the open design.
Additionally, the mention about dungeon levels should be a 5-10 level spread... early EQ dungeons were more like a 15-25 level spread, for a single dungeon. You could spend the entire last half of your levelling experience in Solusek's Eye and it was awesome. Having lots of dungeons with large level spreads is the way to go... no fast travel (outside of player ports and speed buffs), no quick 30 min run to the bottom, tough mobs with trains and corpse runs... love it! Thankfully, the December stream also showed this is most likely the way they are going.
moszis said:I really dont know how else to explain this general idea than with an exaggerated list like this. There are may game activities that already exist and loved by majority of MMO players. There is no need to invent new ones. I am also a firm believer that top tier gear in the game should take many many months if not years to get. I'm an old school EQ player and I want things to be just as hard in Pantheon as it was in EQ. So please dont misunderstand my post as me advocating giving away top tier gear to everyone.
Raids have been done to death and they have been done well. This is the only end game mechanic thats polished and works well. We dont need to change it. What we need is to start thinking about converting other MMO cornerstone ideas/mechanics into end game content. Make them equal in difficulty (mechanically/socially/logistically or mechanically+2/socially-1/logistically-1 or mechanically +1, socially +0, logistically – 1, etc.. math should be balanced) to raids and hence make them worthy of top tier gear. Make the game a wonder again, worthy of exploration and allow for individual choice in gameplay.
See this is why I can't get on board with a lot of sentiments. You are saying that everything in the game deserves the same reward and you are completely throwing out the tenants the game is being founded on. You have to think realistically here. Saying that exploring is just as hard as coordinating a 24+ person raid is outrageous. I can explore the world running around by myself with little to no risk involved. So I should be rewarded with end game gear for that "accomplishment"? Your post is bordering on the entitlement factor that has become the death of modern day MMOs.
"So please dont misunderstand my post as me advocating giving away top tier gear to everyone. " - How else is anyone supposed to take this? You listed every category as T4 aka BiS worthy. Even in EQ there were things that were much more difficult. Hell the majority of people playing EQ during Velious didn't see NToV. During PoP, majority didn't step foot in the elemental planes much less, Time. But exploration deserves that level of loot?? Come on man at least try to meet us half way here.
I like the idea of attempting to modify current methods to make them 'worthy' but the problem is that it isn't feasible. How do you turn exploration into being worthy of top tier gearing? How would you change it to make it mechanically/socially/logistically challenging? There's absolutely nothing to exploration that involves anything of those sentiments.